General Studies Programs

General Education Learning Values

Skagit Valley College continually works to ensure a well-designed and comprehensive General Education program that provides students with competencies and the core knowledge and skills central to all students’ learning and life pursuits. Our General Education Values apply to all programs and contexts where learning takes place-courses in professional-technical as well as transfer, certificate as well as enrichment programs, co-curricular activities as well as advising sessions and in the library. Skagit Valley College’s General Education Learning Values are the following:

Application & Integration: Applying information from one or more disciplines and/or field experiences in new contexts (developing integrated approaches or responses to personal, academic, professional, and social issues.
Information Literacy: Recognizing when information is needed and having the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.
Critical Thinking: Thinking critically about the nature of knowledge within a discipline and about the ways in which that knowledge is constructed and validated and to be sensitive to the ways these processes often vary among disciplines.
Communication: Understanding and producing effective written, spoken, visual, and non-verbal communication
Community & Cultural Diversity: Recognizing the value of human communities and cultures from multiple perspectives through a critical understanding of their similarities and differences.
Global & Local Awareness & Responsibility: Understanding the complexity and interdependence of, and stewardship responsibilities to, local and global communities and environments.
Individual Awareness & Responsibility: Understanding, managing, and taking responsibility for one’s learning and behavior in varied and changing environments.
Aesthetics & Creativity: Interpreting human experience through engagement with creative processes and aesthetic principles.
Mathematical Reasoning: Understanding and applying concepts of mathematics and logical reasoning in a variety of contexts, both academic and non-academic.
Scientific Literacy: Understanding scientific principles, and analyzing and applying scientific information in a variety of contexts.
Technology: Understanding the role of technology in society and using technology appropriately and effectively.